


I Want To Know What Love Is (I Want You To Show Me)

by midnightslug



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), M/M, Virgin Richie Tozier, Wow thats an established tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:54:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26729257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightslug/pseuds/midnightslug
Summary: Two men on the edge of forty, trying to find a way to finally be true to who they are. To stop being afraid, to stop lying, to stop hiding.Teo men in their forties finding each other at the right time and keeping each other honest.... eventually.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 12





	I Want To Know What Love Is (I Want You To Show Me)

**Author's Note:**

> I Want To Know What Love Is is a damn powerful song and really stirs my soul.

1

Richie stretches his shoulders, leaning further into the booth he's sitting in. The woman beside him -and he amazes himself by remembering her name, it's Ellie- shifts closer towards him, turning her body to face him. Her breasts pressed against his shoulder. He takes one last long sip from his scotch and soda. 

Richie has a problem. Flirting comes too easy. It always seems like a fun game, just another way to show off his wit, and of course it came easy because he wasn't nervous about striking out. He never flirted with anyone he really _wanted_ to flirt with. He never initiated any flirting. The stakes were incredibly low. And then there were girls like Ellie. Girls who really meant something when they flirted with you in dark corners of bars. Girls who thought you meant something when you bought them a drink. 

It was another symptom of his ineloquently dubbed trashmouth. His traitor mouth. He couldn't seem to stop it from saying any old thing. Anything that would get him attention would jump out of his throat before his brain was done forming the words. 

Ellie leans her face close to him, breathing in his air. She puts a finger daintily on his chin to turn his face towards her. 

"Your stubble is so cute." She says, rubbing her thumb in a circle over his cheek. 

He hums agreeably. "Oh I grew it just for you." 

She laughs a bit. "You didn't know you were gonna meet me." 

"Yeah, but I was hoping." 

Her hand smoothes down over his chest and he feels panic finally, properly seeping in. She runs her thumb down his shirt and pops open the top button. 

His heart is thumping against his sternum. He watches her hand carefully, wishing she'd just do… _something else._ Not this. Not touch him. If she has to touch him, why can't she just touch his knee, his shoulder, something like that? 

"Oh, you sound excited." Ellie says against his ear, with a smirk. 

"Do I?" It comes out breathy and scared. He course corrects. "And here I thought I was hiding it so well." 

Her hand dips into his shirt, and he tells himself he could deal with this. He can deal with skin on skin. Didn't he want that? Didn't he crave that so often? 

_Not like this. Not from her._

Then a worse thought: 

_This might be all you ever get._

And the thought is much bigger than that moment, that bar, and Ellie. 

_This might be all you ever get._

Richie grabs the sea breeze from Ellie's other hand and takes a long sip from it. 

"You dog." She giggles, taking her hand from under his shirt to swat playfully at his shoulder. 

He wipes at his chin, where the drink had spilled in his haste. 

_This might be all you e-_

He takes Ellie's hand and kisses the back of it. "Listen, doll, I gotta get going."

"Alone?" She asks, looking dejected. 

"Fate demands it, I'm afraid." He says, standing and shrugging his jacket on. 

Ellie sits back in the booth and looks up at him with her best bedroom eyes. "Maybe we can meet up later?" 

"Yeah, yeah, maybe we can." He says, shuffling backwards toward the door. 

Ellie gives him a confused look. "How am I supposed to contact you?" 

"I'll find ya, babe." He says, with a wink. 

With a jingle of bells, he is out the door, walking to the corner of the street, trying to at least delay his hyperventilation until he can get into a cab. 

2

In the bar, Ellie's friend Sarah sees her dejected face and the empty seat beside her. 

She quickly occupies it.

"What happened, babe?" She asks, patting Ellie on the knee. 

Ellie blows a strand of hair out of her face. "Same thing that always happens. Guess I'm just a cow. No, you know what? This was worse." 

"What?"

"He swiped the drink he bought me before he high-tailed it out." 

Sarah groans. "You're kidding." 

Ellie shakes her head. 

Sarah tosses her hair and crosses her legs elegantly. "You know what I think?" 

"Hmm?" 

"I think you need to start going after younger guys. He probably got worried about his erectile dysfunction." 

Ellie giggles and Sarah hands her the lemondrop she was drinking. 

"Here, drink that, and let's dance with _those_ guys." She says, pointing to two twenty-somethings milling near the dance floor. 

"Alright. I call the one with the glasses, though." 

"Of course." 

3

Richie stares at his phone as his taxi weaves through the traffic. He was usually glad to live near the edge of the city, but right now, he just wants to be home in bed, and he knows it's going to be a bit of a wait. 

He feels incredibly stupid watching a music video without the sound on, but he doesn't have any ear buds with him and he feels like playing music from his phone would be rude. He's sure people do it all the time, he just doesn't want to be one of them. 

It occurs to him that the _most_ polite thing is probably to converse with the driver, but he feels too fragile for conversation. He is a windshield with a ding just waiting for the bump that cracks him open. 

He stares at the video, thinking it was pretty stupid that the guy from Weezer - _what is his fucking name? I know it's not River Phoenix but-_ didn't even wear his glasses in the music video for Buddy Holly. But, either way, the damage was done. The song had been such a big deal to him in college that it was comforting to him now, even if all he could do was see the singer's lips forming the words. He could hear it in his head well enough. The video is just a little extra grounding. A little bit more focus. 

When the video ends, he frowns at his phone, thinking. He can conjure a very clear image of Buddy Holly in his mind, but- he opens Google and types "Mary Tyler Moore". He cocks an eyebrow and squints at his phone. His frown deepens on one side. 

_She looks like my mom…_

He scrolls through the images of her, seeming to look more like Maggie Tozier in each one, then he sees one where she was posed with Dick Van Dyke. He taps on the picture and zooms until Mary Tyler Moore isn't visible. Dick Van Dyke had a nice jawline. Good shoulders. His arms were-

_Stop._

He scoffs at himself softly and exits Google. 

_Can you be normal for ten fucking minutes?_

His stomach shifts with anxiety. _Normal_. He hates that word. He hates the context his mind is using it in. He knows better than that. 

Well… he does, and he doesn't. 


End file.
